Jesse knew that up and leaving the city on a whim, especially when he'd started a new job and he was injured, was not exactly the sort of thing people usually did. He'd called up Diana, a bit nervous that he was going to be in some sort of trouble, but she took it a lot better than he'd thought.

"Jesse, breathe," she said, sounding amused. "It's not like you can get out and make deliveries very well anyway, being in a cast. Take JJ with you, I'm sure we'll soldier on without you."

"I won't!" Vicodin shouted jokingly from his end.

"I'll make it up to him," Jesse laughed, and he could all but hear Diana's eyeroll. "You two, honestly," she said fondly. "Call us when you've returned, ja? Safe journey."

"Thanks, Diana," he said. "And yeah, of course I will." They hung up, and he levered himself up off the couch, shuffling around the living room to start to collect his things. Nicholas wasn't home, and he wasn't exactly planning to steal away, but he was also sort of hoping he'd be gone before he got back.

"Are you just on a quest to give me the most ridiculous nicknames ever?" Jesse asked, laughing. "Either way, excellent. And also, Nicholas is coming along, and I figure, the more people around who don't remember me as a rebellious, sinful teenager, the better."

"I swear, if this results in my nickname being Gimpy, even after the cast comes off, I'm gonna be so cross with you," Jesse grumbled, grinning as he headed outside. It took a bit of doing, and he was slower than he'd like to be, but he eventually got down the stairs and into the backseat, his broken leg stretched out across the seat.

"I pretty much never thought I'd be going back again," he said, feeling like his stomach was about to drop out from under him. "It's so weird."

Once at the van, JJ crawled into the driver's seat and Nicholas jumped in to take over shotgun. He didn't want to crowd Jesse in the back, but he turned around and smiled at his friend. "If you need anything, let me know, okay?"

"And I'll try not to jostle you too much!" JJ said, firing up the van. "I hope one of you is going to talk to me to keep me awake, or we're going to stay in a hotel and y'all are going to have to share a bed with me."

"And luckily, I have no problems bribing you," Jesse said cheerfully. "So it all works out."

"Cross my heart," he promised, drawing an actual X over his heart. "Though hopefully I'll fall asleep at some point."

"Oh no, that'd be such a hardship," Jesse deadpanned. "It's a longass drive, JJ, we're not gonna make you stay awake all that time. I'll look for a hotel at a decent halfway point, wherever that happens to be."

"That usually ends up being my job," Jesse joked, pulling out his phone and looking up hotels. He found one that was both cheap and not awful, roughly halfway between New York and Baton Rouge, and booked it for that night.

He didn't remember much after that. Long drives usually put him to sleep when he was a passenger, and this time was no exception. Next thing he knew, it was dark and they were pulling to a stop. He sat up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. "Dang, I missed the whole ride, didn't I?" he asked.

Jess laughed as she pulled the van into a spot and stopped. "You might have, but Nicholas kept me amused by talking constantly about funny work stories. Then I told some of my own and we swapped sex worker stories."

"You know, you didn't have to tell him that sex worker thing," Nicholas snorted, opening his door so he could jump out.

"Uh oh, Nicky's all embarrassed he bought love for moneyyyy!" she said in a sing-song voice, grinning widely at Jesse. Their mirth, however, was interrupted by Jesse's phone ringing. "Christ," Jess said, glancing at her friend. "It's really late, who the fuck is calling?"

"Jay, breathe," Jesse told him. "And what you need to do is just hang tight, OK? I'm actually, uhm...I'm actually halfway back to Baton Rouge, I was coming to make sure you were alright. The fucking irony. And even if he dies, you wouldn't be homeless, we'd figure something out."

"You what?" Jesse was on his way already and Jayden let out a sort of half-hysterical laugh, far too high pitched to be healthy. "Oh thank you, Jesse. Thank you." He rattled off which hospital he was at and then sighed again. "Okay, I'm breathing."

"Tomorrow's good," Jayden said, since he hadn't expected to see his brother at all. "I'll stay here. No one here to drive me home anyway and I don't have money for a taxi. It's a long walk. I want to know how he is."

"Just make sure you do some sleeping of your own, alright?" Jesse said, smothering a yawn of his own. "I'll come and find you when we get into town. Did anyone call Adrian & Isaiah? I don't know how to get a hold of them."

He hung up and rubbed his eyes, looking over at JJ. "My father had a stroke," he told her. "No one'll tell Jay anything, so in turn, I don't know anything. Jay's panicking, and I'm worried for him more than anything else. Poor kid's worried he'll be homeless if they old bastard dies."

Jesse just held onto her for a moment, trying to calm his whirling brain.

"There was never any other plan, in my mind," he agreed. "Hell, I would have tried to take him back with us even if he wasn't dying. And yeah, Jay would have to live in my closet, but rather a closet or your place or someplace that isn't that house. Which, wait til you see this thing, it's so antebellum South, it's ridiculous." He sighed, dropping his head into his hands. "It's times like this I wish teleporting was an actual thing."